June 30, 2025 • 60 mins
The brutal 1991 murder of Northwest Airlines flight attendant Nancy Ludwig in room 354 of the Airport Hilton stands as one of Detroit's most perplexing cold cases. This gripping episode delves deep into the exhaustive investigation that followed, revealing how detectives Snyder and Malianak pursued over 2,300 tips in their relentless search for justice.
We explore the fascinating case of Michael Flynn, a pathological impostor who presented himself as a Northwest pilot while actually working as a firefighter on disability. Flynn's elaborate fabrications, strange behavior, and connection to the victim initially made him a compelling suspect until DNA evidence eliminated him from consideration. His story serves as just one example of the countless leads that investigators pursued and ultimately ruled out in this frustrating investigation.
The episode also highlights the extraordinary efforts of Nancy's widower, Art Ludwig, who transformed his grief into action. Drawing on his media background, Art orchestrated a years-long awareness campaign that included national television appearances, newspaper advertisements, reward posters, and even arranging for the Teamsters union to contribute $30,000 to help catch his wife's killer. Despite facing suspicion himself—an unfortunate reality for many spouses in murder investigations—Art never stopped fighting to keep Nancy's case alive in the public consciousness.
A decade after the murder, advancing DNA technology brought new hope in the form of a specialized cold case task force in Flint, Michigan. The collaboration between Police Chief Bradford Barksdale and Michigan State Police Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bertie demonstrates how institutional partnerships can overcome bureaucratic obstacles when solving heinous crimes becomes the priority.
What drives investigators to pursue justice years after a case goes cold? How does a family survive the aftermath of such a brutal crime? Listen now to understand the profound impact of unsolved murders and the dedicated professionals who refuse to let killers escape accountability, no matter how much time has passed.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part 7 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Detective Snyder passed anotherearly tip on to Malianak to
chase down and this one was froma Mark Ebby about some similar
(00:24):
murder of his mother in Flint.
Neither Snyder nor Malianak hadheard of the Ebby killing but
it was worth looking into bytheir standards.
All the tips were.
Malianak called the Flint PD andwas referred to King.
He left a message for King,left another, left several more
(00:46):
and he kept leaving messages andleaving messages but he never
called him back.
And finally, after a while hewas finally getting a hold of
him and he told him about theLudwig killing and the tip and
asked if there were anysimilarities enough to be of
interest.
And King agreed that therecertainly were similarities and
(01:12):
he told Malianak that they got agrouping, that they were
looking for a guy who's type A.
So he asked do you have anyserological evidence on your
case?
So he asked do you have anyserological evidence on your
case?
And King told them no, thateverything they had was degraded
(01:35):
and because it's 1987, thesemen was too degraded for the
technology that was availablefor that time.
But it held secrets.
It's stored in ice at the statepolice crime, like in
Bridgeport.
That might one day be unlocked.
Now.
King told Malinak that theyknew who had killed Ebi.
(01:57):
They just couldn't prove it butthey would get him eventually.
Their guy in the Flint case wastype O.
They were not looking for thesame killer.
Had he been the Pooning type,king might have told him that it
(02:19):
was a stone cold certainty.
And so Malianak said well,thanks anyway.
He hung up, followed his reporton the result of the tip and
that was for him another deadend.
Eventually, some 2,300 tipswere be phoned in.
Months later, after the flowhad dried up, they were
(02:43):
reorganized and renumbered Forno particular reason, just
happenstance.
The co-found, mark Eby, wasdesignated as tip number one.
The people who run and walkdowntown was a creation of
Detroit's Central BusinessDistrict Association in 1983.
The pro-business group thoughtit might be able to use the
(03:06):
running room boom to create cashflow and profits for downtown
restaurants and bars.
What was traditionally one ofthe slowest nights in town.
The CBDA ran a small ad in aweekly shopper asking if there
were runners out thereinterested in getting together
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after work.
On Tuesdays, about 30 show upfor the first organizational
meeting and the group had beenmeeting at a different downtown
bar or restaurant after workevery Tuesday since On summer
Tuesdays as many as 200 wouldshow up, on cold winter nights
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as few as 30.
It was an eclectic mix of oldand young, black and white, blue
collar, white collar,suburbanite Detroiter.
Though many of the group weresingle, it wasn't a typical
singles bar scene with peoplehitting on each other
frenetically.
People were more likely to talkabout track workouts or recent
10K times than their signs ofthe Zodiac.
(04:11):
In 1989, michael Flynn startedshowing up on Tuesdays and made
a big first impression.
He was charming and gregarious,the kind of guy to walk up to
strangers, thrust out a hand andoffer a big smile.
He was a pilot for NorthworthAirlines.
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He often arrived in his pilot'suniform, either just getting in
from a flight or on his way outof town.
He would change in the barrestaurant into his running
clothes, go out for a six-milerun, then return.
If he had to catch a flight, hewould change back into his
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uniform and leave.
If he was just in from a flight, then he would have a few beers
and chat up the women.
He was one of the group's niceguys.
So much so, in fact, that atthe club's annual Super Bowl
party in 1990, when he wasscheduled to make an afternoon
flight to the West Coast, hemade up a huge batch of chili
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and dropped it off the party forothers to enjoy during the game
while he was heading West.
One of the women he chatted upwas a pretty young engineer
named Patricia Bosch.
She was a triathlete, veryattractive, and she was single
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and was an obvious object ofattention of many of the single
men in the group.
It wasn't long before Michaeland Patricia were dating.
The Gilgravius pilot and thecurvaceous engineer made quite a
match.
There was one odd thing thebetter runners in the club
noticed, though.
On Tuesdays Michael would tellabout his latest PR over the
(06:03):
weekend, pr being running lingofor a personal record at one
distance or another.
Each Tuesday, michael wouldtell of having run yet another
10k 6.2 miles at yet anotherrecord pace.
He soon was breaking the40-minute mark in the 10k that
many runners consider thebenchmark for qualifying as a
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very good recreational runner.
Except that when Michael wentout to run each Tuesday night
with the other runners in theclub who could also break 40
minutes, he could never comeclose to keeping up.
He would be with them for amile or two, gasping furiously,
then fall quickly off the pace,ending up running the last few
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miles by himself.
And this all happened at a paceof maybe 7 minutes and 30
seconds a mile, versus the 6.15that he claimed he could do at
races.
So it was a BS artist.
The other good runners quicklydecided about him.
(07:10):
No way could he break 40minutes on Saturday and die like
a dog on Tuesday.
Another of his claims he wasdivorced and carried around a
picture of his young boy dressedin his hockey uniform.
Flynn said he got to be bestfriends with Bill Ford Jr of the
famous Fords who dominateDetroit business and cultural
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circles.
Seems Flynn was at a localhockey rink to watch his son
play and had gone to theconcession stand.
On his way back he saw a totfalling off the back of the
bleachers lining the rink andhad made a miraculous catch just
before the child slammed intothe concrete.
It was Bill Ford's child and heand Flynn had since grown close
(07:58):
.
A third claim that hisbackground was diverse.
He introduced himself toanother single young woman in
the group one night, julieHamilton, a psychotherapist at
Eastwood Clinic, and Flynn saidthat it was a small world
because he had worked there foryears as a therapist too.
(08:20):
After a month or so of dating,patricia found that Michael's
running wasn't the only thing heinflated.
Somehow word got to her that hewasn't a pilot with Northwest
and that he was a fireman in hisdistrict or East Detroit, I
should say and apparently not avery good one either.
(08:41):
Word was that he was afraid ofheights not recommended in that
line of latter-aided work and ondisability.
She confronted him with it andat first he denied it.
He was angry, demanded thatthey not break up.
He called insensibly, came over, pleaded his case, didn't want
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to give up on the relationship.
Later Patricia noticed clothingdisappearing from her house and
suspected Michael was sneakingin and taking things.
Word about all of that wentthrough the club like wildfire.
Interestingly enough, though,the club members tolerated his
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deceptions about running andflying.
No one ever called him on themto his face.
He kept coming out on Tuesdaysin his pilot's uniform and he
kept telling about improbabletimes at weekend races.
And people kept telling storiesabout him behind his back.
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In October of 1990, fellow clubmembers turned him in for
cheating at the Detroit FreePress International Marathon.
He finished in 3 hours and 15minutes and qualified for the
Boston Marathon.
In the process he had beatenout several of the runners he
couldn't keep up with onTuesdays and in the process had
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beaten out several of therunners he couldn't keep up with
on Tuesdays, and a review offilm from various cameras set up
along the way to catch cheaters.
He was nowhere to be seen untilafter the midpoint in the race
when suddenly he appeared,ridiculously enough, in his
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first appearance on film.
He was wearing a nylon jacketon a hot day and had not started
sweating yet, though he wassupposed to be more than 13
miles into his run.
Later shots of him showed thenylon jacket tied around his
waist and sweat pouring down.
Late in the race he was walking.
(10:47):
He requested a hearing withrace officials to dispute the
charges but didn't show and wasdisqualified.
Late February or early March of1991, michael Hara, a sports
reporter who covered the DetroitLions for the Detroit News,
wally Pupor, a computerspecialist at Ford, and two
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other members of the DowntownRunners had separated themselves
from their fellow club membersfor a conversation Tonight.
The talk wasn't of training,pace or race times.
It was of murder and of thesuspect in their midst, someone
wanted to throw out somethingfor comment, but only to a small
circle of trusted friends.
(11:32):
And one of them said you guyshave been following the murder
of that Northwest stewardess.
And they nodded and said yeah,sure, who has not, who hadn't?
And they, they said anythingjump out of you.
And O'Hara said Michael Flynn.
(11:53):
And the first speaker said yeah, you got it.
And one asked Flynn, why Flynn?
And speculation was rife in themedia that since there were no
signs of violence outsideludwig's hotel room, no signs of
forced entry, perhaps thekiller was someone who had
gained her trust.
Between the lines there seemedto be a bit of blaming the
(12:16):
victim, that she had maybe beenpicked up in the hotel bar and
you know the comment was well,you know, she's a flight
attendant, right.
And then they you know they'resaying it might have been
someone she knew or someone shemight have met, that she had
reason to trust.
And this is the first speakersaying that said it must be a
(12:38):
fellow employee, maybe a pilot,know anyone who hangs around
bars in a pilot's uniform.
And again someone said MichaelFlynn.
So what should we do?
He said well, there's an 800number to call it's a tip line,
should we call it?
And they decided that they gotto.
(12:58):
And then they also asked whatif he didn't do it?
And then somebody would say,well, but what if he did?
So Flynn's deceptions no longerseem humorous and, what's more,
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it was widely reported thatLudwig's clothes were missing
and Patricia suspected thatFlynn was taking her things too.
After this conversation,someone volunteered to call the
tip line.
On succeeding Tuesdays, thesmall group of people who ran
downtown would continue tospeculate about Flynn and the
(13:39):
love with murder.
No one from the Romulus PD everacknowledged getting the tip or
mentioned whether or not theyfollow up on it.
The group of runners never knewif Flynn was investigated and,
if so, if he had been cleared.
Whenever Flynn came up to themover the following years,
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grinning his big grin, glad,handing them, they pictured a
raped and mutilated flightattendant in a hotel room at the
airport.
So they avoided him and theimage whenever they could.
What O'Hara and the otherswouldn't find out for 11 years
was that the cops had indeedacted on the tip, that it had
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been the second best one theywould have get out of the 2,300.
Concurrently, flame's name hadcome up by way of the Macomb
County Sheriff's Department,which called Snyder on March 8.
They were holding Flynn at thecounty jail and thought that
Romulus PD ought to hustle theirway up there.
(14:44):
Flynn had shown up in a Navyuniform at an elementary school
claiming to be a pilot just backfrom Desert Storm.
He wanted to arrange a speechbefore an assembly.
Suspicious school officialscalled the sheriff's department.
He agreed voluntarily to asearch of his car and the
sheriff's deputy found ID forNorthwest Airlines and a
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Northwest captain's uniform inhis trunk.
Snyder raised up I-94 to MrClemens, or to Mount Clemens,
and interviewed Flynn in thecounty jail.
He told them he was in fact alieutenant with the East Detroit
Fire Department and had been acop in East Detroit too.
Flynn told them that the lasttime he had been to the airport
(15:30):
was in October to fly to amarathon in Minneapolis and that
he had never been to the Hilton.
His former girlfriend, patriciaBosch, was cooperative and she
still had one of Flynn's coatswhich she turned over to Snyder
and Melinek, and it was a Navypea coat bearing the tag
(15:52):
Lieutenant Flynn, uss, midway Inthe pocket of the coat.
This got their hearts going.
It was a letter Flynn hadwritten to Bosch just days after
Ludwig's murder and in theletter Flynn said he knew Ludwig
, that she was a fine person andthat it make him sick to think
about what had been done to her.
(16:13):
And Snyder said Bingo, this isour guy.
Flynn readily agreed to giveMalinak and Gordon or Malinak, I
should say a saliva sample fora DNA test.
(16:36):
And when it came back weekslater, the bingo turned into
bust because his DNA didn'tmatch the seaming at the scene.
He wasn't the killer, he wasjust a duck with a good line and
nice uniforms.
He was just plain imposter.
(16:57):
Snyder found out that profilersfrom the FBI and various police
agencies around the country werehaving a convention in Iowa in
March.
Iowa in March.
Northwest offered free flightsand crowds, sprung money from
the budget for a hotel and foodand sent Malianak and Snyder to
see what they could come up with.
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Malianak thought it was a bunchof hooey.
Snyder thought it would be likechicken soup couldn't hurt.
Besides, who wants to pass up atrip to Iowa in March?
According to, according toMalinak, the profilers told them
that the killer was a whitemale.
Big deal, haven't they allthat's useless.
(17:39):
One profiler told them thekiller may have been mentally
disturbed which, given what hehad done to the body before and
after death, including justafter sawing off her head with a
serrated knife, struck Malinakas no shit, sherlock.
The profilers also told themthe killer surely lived within
(18:00):
five miles of the airport andhad likely taken Ludwig's
belongings to build a shrine toher and her murder in the
basement of his house.
If it was typical of a Romulushouse, the horror of the shrine
would be hidden behind thenormal exterior of a small
aluminum-sided bungalow.
(18:20):
The shrine would include herunderwear, pantyhose, wallet,
purse, diamond earrings, threepieces of burgundy, northwest
flight attendant luggage, creditcards, uniform and an ID tag.
The killer was certainly single, probably did not have a
girlfriend, likely had beendominated by his mother and may
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still live with her.
He was probably no taller than5'10", probably changed his jobs
frequently, probably neverserved in the military.
His car was likely an oldjunker filled with just about
everything he owns.
In another conclusion, thekiller was an organized rapist
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and a disorganized murderer.
He had planned the rape but hadnot planned the murder.
It was something that just gotout of hand.
Snyder was skeptical.
This was no accidental murder,no disorganized killer.
He had gone to the Hilton torape and kill.
He had raped and killed and sofar he had gotten away with it.
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And Snyder asked hey, you haveseen those films from gas
station cameras where a guy goesto interrupt the place.
The robbery goes bad.
He ends up shooting the clerk.
What does he do?
He freaks out.
He runs out of there as fast ashe can.
There's an accidental killer.
If Nancy's killer didn't intendto kill her, he wouldn't have
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stuck around and clean up,unlike the Flint PD.
Snyder and Malianak took whatthe profilers had to say with a
grain of salt.
A good thing too, since most ofit would many years later prove
to be dead wrong About.
The only thing they believedwas that the killer might very
well be in the mist, living inone of those rummeless bungalows
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they drove by every day.
It wasn't much of a return onthe investment of plane tickets
to Iowa, because the profilershad not helped.
They were no closer to solvethe case, as had the Ebi murder.
The Lowood murder faded into oneof those filler stories editors
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assign on slow news days or onanniversaries or year-end
roundups.
There was so much interest inthe case.
There wasn't a year that wentby when, on the anniversary,
someone in the media didn't callto ask about it.
Someone in the media didn'tcall to ask about it.
Clues, scares and death offlight attendant that was a
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headline for the free press sixmonths after the murder.
Flight attendant's slayingstill unsolved that was the
headline in their December 28,1991 edition.
Under December 28, 1991 editionby then all the leads had been
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dead ends and the case had longgone.
Now Michael Flynn wasn't theonly good suspect, not the first
bingo and not the first bust.
The first had been the shuttlebus driver fired for screaming
at the Northwest flightattendant.
Another early suspect was aviolent crack cocaine addict who
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was picked up on drug chargesand during routine questioning
said he couldn't remember whathe had been doing Sunday night.
But he may have done it.
He was cleared too.
Not long after the murder aformer manager at the Hilton
called in a tip.
Six months earlier he had beenworking the desk when a white
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male came up to him and said hiskey card wouldn't open his door
and he wanted a replacement.
The manager recognized it as amissing master key for another
floor.
He called police and stole theguy until they could arrive.
Stalling meant in this caselistening to the guy with the
unlikely last name of Straight,talking about his satanic cult
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and how he was going to Atlantato chop off some arms and heads.
Extremely disoriented, he toldpolice he was the Antichrist and
wanted to find someone in thehotel to have sex with so he
could get rid of himself of hisevil spirit.
His mother was calling, he wasin charge.
Pretty hot tip.
(22:48):
A guy known for possession ofstolen key cards wanted to have
sex to purchase demons andhoping to cut off heads.
Melanie Akensteiner paid him avisit, tracking him down at Papa
Romano's Pizza Joe nearby wherehe was a delivery man.
He said he was on medicationthese days.
(23:09):
He had been in church with hisparents.
The night of Lewitt's murder hedid give a saliva sample and was
cleared.
Waitresses at the Wheat and Ryerestaurant near the airport
flagged a waiter at the HolidayInn.
His girlfriend was a Northwestflight attendant and he liked to
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beat her up, but he was alsocleared.
Blood and saliva tests clearedsome 60 suspects in the first
few months.
Eventually, saliva, blood orDNA tests would clear 200
persons, including Art Ludwig,who's neither reluctantly asked
to take a test about six monthsafter the murder as a formality
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asked to take a test about sixmonths after the murder as a
formality.
Periodically some sickle,having read about room 354,
would show up at the front deskand specifically ask for that
room.
Look for some thrill inspending a night where Ludwig
had died.
Police were called each time.
Each time the suspect wascleared.
For years room 354 was takenout of circulation, stripped of
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furniture, carpeting, used asstorage area, even after the
hotel was sold and became theRoyce Hotel.
Today the hotel is a DoubleTreeHotel and the room is back in
service with the same number.
The same number.
In May 1992, it looked again asif police by half their man,
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leslie Allen Williams, age 38,had been arrested for four rape,
murders and other assaults inOakland County.
Ludwig had been killed on aSunday and Williams' last six
known assaults had come onweekends.
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His blood type was A positive.
He had bound his victims' hands.
All of his assaults werespontaneous and premeditated
crimes of opportunity.
In June, though, policeannounced he was not the killer.
Further lab tests show he hadthe wrong enzymes in his blood.
The year 1995 was a busy yearfor hot leads.
(25:19):
Ann Arbor police called Snyderto tell them they had arrested
James Kleppinger for raping andmurdering his girlfriend Of
interest was his MO.
He had used ligatures to bindher hands and he lived just down
Merriman Road from the airport,but Steider determined he had
been in Ohio when Ludwig died.
(25:40):
Glenn Rogers was arrested inKentucky in connection with a
cross-country killing spree thatclaimed the lives of women in
Mississippi, florida, california, louisiana.
That claimed the lives of womenin Mississippi, florida,
california, louisiana.
Breyer's sister told police herbrother might have killed more
than 50 women nationwide.
(26:01):
Charles Rathbun, a freelancephotographer who had once worked
in Michigan, admitted that hehad killed Linda Sobeck, a
cheerleader for the Los AngelesRaiders, but he said it was
accidental.
He was suspected of killing asecond woman and had been
charged with rape in 1979.
Romulus police investigatedboth men.
(26:22):
Blood samples cleared them ofLudwig's murder.
Then they got word of a mirrorimage killing in Minneapolis of
places with center hearts racing.
James Luther Carton, a 40 yearold man, uh who was a
construction laborer andcrackhead, had been arrested for
(26:44):
the torture, rape and murder ofa 26 year old office worker
named Judy Lee Dover.
Her hands had been bound andshe had been gagged.
There were seven puncturewounds on her right shoulder and
three were above her rightbreast.
A slashing wound to her neckhad severed all major arteries
(27:09):
and vessels and she had beenraped.
Blood tests cleared him and theLudwig case.
Three years later, anotherheart-thumping bingo started
with a teletype out of a smallpolice department in Minnesota
telling the Romulus PD that theyhave arrested a former Michigan
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resident from the affluentDetroit suburb of Grosse Pointe.
Two women get in their van at aWalmart.
The driver hears something,turns, sees this guy in the back
holding a hunting knife.
She jumps out screaming.
He panics, jumps out, wants topick up, squeals out of there.
(27:52):
She gets the license plate andcalls the cops.
The cops find him in a motel,the knife is wrapped in a towel,
in the truck next to a largebottle of bleach, like he was
planning to clean up a mess.
They ran his name found he hadbeen arrested in Michigan in
1986, his name found he had beenarrested in Michigan in 1986,
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went to jail and got out inDecember of 1990, just in time
to murder Ludwig.
His blood work in Michiganshowed he was a positive, just
what they were looking for,though his PGM grouping was a
not.
Milindak wanted him to submitto another sample, this time to
find his PGM, but he refused.
14 months later he finallyagreed to another blood test,
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wrong PGM grouping.
He was clear on Ludwig.
The next hot suspect would notsurface until 2002.
(29:03):
Art Ludwig wasn't a passivevictim, anything, but he decided
early on to do what he did best.
He was a media guy, he hadworked on the media so he would
keep the story alive.
He would keep the heat on.
He would do what he could coulddo to get Nancy's killer one
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way or another sooner or later.
Early on there was a delaygetting the 800 number tip line
started, something with budgetproblems in the police
department.
Ludwig told Ken Krause that hewould pay for the tip line if he
had to, but he wanted a line upand running ASAP.
Krause called him back, hisbosses had okayed the line and
(29:50):
and Rumlis would pay for it.
Ludwig kept coming back toDetroit to do radio and TV
interviews.
He was accessible to thereporters at the Detroit News
and Detroit Free Press and theywere happy to keep the story
alive.
Everything he did he made surehe told his growing number of
media contacts.
About A month after the murderhe videotaped an appeal for
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information and had itdisseminated to Detroit media
outlets and the headline readVictim's Husband Tapes on Appeal
.
Two months after the murder,art flew into town and met with
a psychic from Brighton and aclairvoyant from Farmington
Hills and room 354 at theairport Hilton.
(30:35):
They told him they were able topick up the same image of the
killer and that their imagedidn't match Arcee's description
of the composite in thenewspapers either.
But they couldn't actuallydescribe what they thought they
were seeing Privately.
Ludwig thought they wereuseless but nonetheless it was a
(30:58):
father for headlines, a way tokeep the story alive.
Grieving husband calls onpsychics to find wife's killer.
At first neither, and I feltthat they have solved this
fairly fast, says Ludwig, quote.
And then he says also quote.
But then I felt the more wekept it on the front burner, the
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better off you would be One.
There was less chance theRomulus police would go on to
something else if there was alot of hue and cry and second,
it would generate leads.
End quote Love.
We got the Teamsters Nancy wasa member of Local 2747 to kick
(31:41):
in $30,000 to the reward fund.
Headlines was Teamsters JoinHunt for Killer Truckers to
Circulate Flyers About SlainFlight Attendant.
That was the headline in theDetroit News on August 21, 1991.
Art's picture accompanied thestory with a cut line Art Ludwig
(32:04):
.
He wants answers.
The award announcement coincidedwith a big campaign to splash
wanted posters all over townwith details of Nancy's slaying
and photos of the compositedrawings of the killer.
Art held a press conference atthe Marriott Hotel on August 26
(32:27):
to announce that there would bea barrage of posters the next
day.
Papers prominently carried thestory.
Unfrustrated Lowell was quotedas saying in the news quote my
mission is to raise publicawareness.
End quote.
He also took out big displayads featuring the poster in all
the dailies and suburbanweeklies in the Detroit area.
(32:49):
The Teamsters said they wouldrun the reward poster in their
union magazine and their 1.6million members nationwide would
distribute the bright yellowflyers at hotels, restaurants
and airports.
Nationwide Teamsters membersand Art and his daughters taped
posters up on light poles aroundtown.
(33:11):
On September 16, advo Systems,a direct mail company in
suburban Livonia, begandistributing copies of the
poster to all households withinfive miles of the airport.
Art knew how to pull the mediastrings and he pulled them with
good timing and great effect.
He had mentored a lot ofsuccessful TV executives and
(33:35):
reporters over the years.
Now he would call in all favors, all chits, to get the airtime
he could.
He got on the Mavripovich showout of New York.
He made appearances on ACurrent Affair Inside Edition.
He let cameras follow himaround to fill the B-rolls of
(33:56):
their feature stories and helater on said I prostituted
myself to the media While in NewYork taping the Povitch Show.
Lowe would make with an authorhe had heard about who was
writing a true crime book onunsolved cases.
His wife's brother ended upgarnering a chapter in the book
(34:16):
titled Rewards.
On the first anniversary of hiswife's death, ludwig took out
display ads and the Detroit areapapers and the first line read
In loving memory of my wife,northwest Flight Attendant Read.
The second and in huge, boldletters the third line read
(34:38):
Nancy Jean Ludwig, the body ofthe ad, said in part that Nancy
was raped and murdered at theairport Hilton Hotel in Romulus
on Sunday night, february 17th1991.
The person responsible for thishorrible act is still free and
probably still in the Detroitarea.
(34:59):
It is absolutely essential thatwe get this person off the
streets and into treatmentbefore he strikes again.
The next victim could besomeone you love wife, mother,
girlfriend, daughter or neighbor.
Tips poured in Snyder andMeliniak ran down.
(35:19):
All of them Nothing.
Each anniversary Art hadsomething planned that would
bring the story back to life fora day or two.
Someone knew something he wassure If he kept the story alive
they might catch a break.
If he let it die.
Well, that wasn't going tohappen.
(35:42):
Just after the fourthanniversary of Nancy's death,
ludwig's forlorn visage peeredout at readers from the cover of
the pre-pressed magazine ofMarch 12, 1995, her wrote in a
story by Ben Burns, a formereditor of the Detroit News who
was dean of journalism at WayneState University.
(36:02):
It was a story that grew out ofa 15-week project he assigned
his students in a class oninvestigative reporting.
Lubbock told Burns that he waswilling to do anything, anything
go anywhere, to catch thekiller.
He killed two people that night.
(36:23):
He killed Nancy and he killedme.
On the fifth anniversary of hermurder, the free press carried
a five-column story with theheadline Six Sisters Search for
Stepmother's Death.
The story announced that fourof Ludwig's daughters were
(36:43):
arriving at what had been theairport Hilton.
It had been sold since themurder and it was then called
the Royce Hotel for Minneapolisthat day to kick off a campaign
to find their stepmother'skiller.
They would be in for severaldays doing interviews, passing
out new flyers and beating thedrums.
(37:04):
The story said that the hotelhad agreed to let them place
flowers and light candles inroom 354, which had not been
used since the murder Snyder wasquoted.
I have never had a case for thislength of time that has kept
the attention of so many people.
I don't know why.
(37:25):
That is A two-word explanation.
Art Ludwig, what tips poured in?
Nothing.
Despite everything he did overthe years, nothing stopped some
people from thinking he hadeither killed his wife or, more
likely, hired someone to do it.
There were rumors that he hadlost money in an investment in a
(37:47):
failed bread bakery, which wastrue, and needed insurance money
, which is false.
He felt the cold shoulder fromsome, the glances from others
faces quickly averted when heturned to them.
Always he felt as though hewere under a cloud of suspicion.
Seven or eight years afterNancy's death, art got a call
(38:10):
from a close friend who wantedto alert him that a mutual
acquaintance was spreading dirtabout Art.
The mutual acquaintance was oneof Art's closest childhood
friends, one of his fellowbusboys during summers at Lennon
Lakes Bar and Cafe in Brainerd.
On weekends, when they got outof work too late to avoid
breaking curfew they would sleepin the employee bunk room on
(38:36):
the second floor of therestaurant.
The friend was much bigger thanArt but they have wrestled and
engaged in typical horseplay.
They were inseparable in highschool and kept in touch.
Over the years the friend hadbecome a cop.
He was telling people quote I'ma cop and I know Art did it.
It's just matter of time tillthey prove it.
(38:58):
End quote.
Art said that he was absolutelystunned.
He said quote we have livedtogether.
We went to high school together.
I have been in his home.
When he got sick I visited himin the hospital.
End quote.
Art hasn't spoken with himsince the friendship, another
(39:24):
victim.
But for all of Art's workingfor media, for all of Snyder's
and Malianak's bulldogrelentless deaths, eventually
they had to admit it was nothingmore to be done.
It was a cold case.
They were at a dead end.
(39:51):
Bradford Barksdale has anunusual academic background for
chief of police, with anaffinity and talent for biology,
chemistry, calculus and physics.
He went to Cass Technical HighSchool in Detroit and Margaret
Evey's alma mater In 1970, whenBarksdale graduated.
(40:18):
It was, and today still is, anoasis of learning in a largely
dysfunctional school systemriddled with incompetence and
indifference, where high schoolseniors routinely cannot read or
calculate above second or thirdgrade levels.
Cass Tech is where the smartestand most motivated of the
city's kids go, often arrivingby city bus from many miles and
several transfers away.
(40:38):
Barksdale went to theUniversity of Michigan-Flint and
spent his first three years asa math major, switching to
African-American studies.
As a senior he switched overafter an incident that proved
for him that math was tootheoretical to pursue as a
life's occupation.
A professor one day wentthrough a counterintuitive proof
(41:01):
that if you take .9999 andextend the nines to infinity,
the number became equivalent toone For Barksdale it was hogwash
to one.
For Barksdale it was hogwash.
He didn't care how many ninesthere were If you kept having
one nine after another.
To him you were approaching asclose as you could get to one,
(41:22):
but still were not there Of sucha tiny thing the difference, or
lack thereof, between one and adecimal point followed by an
infinity ofnines.
Would Flint's police chiefultimately be made?
Like many big cities in themid-1970s, flint was recruiting
blacks to diversify its policeforce and Barksdale thought he
(41:47):
would give it a shot.
He started out workingundercover narcotics because he
was a fresh face no one wouldrecognize.
He made sergeant in 1984,lieutenant in 1987, about the
same time he was assigned to theFlint Area Narcotics Group, or
FANG, a multi-jurisdictionaltask force that included members
(42:08):
of the state police police.
In 1995, Barksdale was promotedto captain and on October 3,
2000, 23 years to the day afterhe started training at the
police academy, he was namedchief of police.
Coincidentally, in 1981, duringa 15-month layoff from the PD
(42:33):
during one of Flint's recurringeconomic slums, barksdale got to
know Ebi.
He took a temporary job asdirector of safety and security
at UM-Flint and was in severalmeetings with her.
He was working vice andnarcotics when Ebi was murdered
and had no involvement with thecase, though like everyone in
(42:53):
Flint he was well-versed in hisparticulars.
While working with Fang,barksdale had become friends
with his supervisor on the taskforce, captain Robert Bertie.
They were both no-nonsense,straight-shooting cops with
reputations for knowing how toget things done and done right.
Bertie had been a small-townkid growing up in Michigan's
(43:16):
thumb.
He graduated from high schoolin 1970, went to college for a
year, didn't like it and droppedout.
In 1973 he took a part-time jobas cop in his hometown of North
Branch, a job that came withnot a minute of training.
(43:37):
He just raised his right arm,took an oath, got his uniform.
He fell in love with being acop, joined the state police
academy the next year and, upongraduation, became a road
trooper for $4.82 an hour inPontiac, a city very much like
Flint in that its auto factoryeconomy was suffering through
(44:00):
hard times as imports caughtinto the Big Three's market
share.
Birdie worked undercover inDetroit three years, then worked
on several motor jurisdictionalteams in an affluent Oakland
County north of Detroit, inwestern Michigan and in Flint.
In 1996, he was promoted tocaptain and placed in charge of
(44:22):
the state police's criminalinvestigations division, where
he oversaw covert operationssuch as the installation of
hidden cameras and microphonesduring investigations and
reporting to the state'sattorney general, investigating
all allegations of corruption,of malfeasance by the state's
(44:45):
elected politicians.
By the time Barksdale wasappointed, chief Birdie had
become a lieutenant colonel withthe state police and was its
highest-ranking career officer,reporting only to a political
appointee who held the rank ofcolonel.
In 2000, flint was in anotherdownturn, this one severe enough
(45:11):
that Michigan's Governor, johnEngler, had repeatedly
threatened to have the statetake over the running of the
city, and in fact, a trustee waseventually appointed to oversee
Flint's day-to-day operationsand tried to rein in its huge
budget deficits, reducing themayor to a figurehead.
(45:32):
Reducing the mayor to afigurehead.
The police department was goingthrough layoffs and in even
more of a budget crunch thannormal.
Eventually, the departmentwould lose 100 positions, going
from about 350 officers in thelate 1990s to about 250 in
2002.
When he heard his old friendhad made chief Bertie, gave
(45:57):
Barksdale a call and suggestedthey get together.
He thought they might besomething the MSP could do to
help his old friend battle thebad guys in Flint.
And he said quote I wanted usto be more fluid and flexible in
our approach to crime solving.
If you see something, offeryour assistance.
(46:20):
Some police departments wantyour help, others don't.
End quote.
So he figured that Barksdalewould, that Barksdale would.
And he said that he had neverfound a chief of police that
(46:41):
cared for his community morethan Brad Barksdale cares for
his.
He was willing to be creativeand, more important, willing to
allocate resources to come toFlint's aid.
So Bertie even was willing togo so far as to pull in
detectives or troopers fromother
districts.
Before the end of the year 2000, bertie and Barksdale met for
(47:02):
lunch, having worked together inFAN.
Both were supporters ofmulti-jurisdictional task forces
.
Both were also big proponentsof DNA technology and
well-versed and recenttechnological advances that
might make it possible to solveall crimes.
They decided to form a coldcase task force that, so as not
(47:25):
to step on any toes, would onlytarget very old cases no longer
being worked.
That would also reduce thepossibility of opposition,
either from within the ranks ofthe PD or from local politicians
, democrats, all who were veryleery of perceived meddling by
(47:45):
the state or its Republicangovernor.
They also decided to targetcases where crime scene evidence
could lend itself to updatedDNA analysis.
There was one case that jumpedout to Barksdale as fitting
every criteria.
The Ebi case was at the top ofthe list, he says he asked
(48:07):
Bertie if he was familiar withthe case.
He wasn't.
Barksdale, filled him in, saidnothing would impact our
community more than solvingthis.
Brady went back to his Lansingoffice at the MSP's headquarters
and told his assistant, markDugovito, who supervised all the
(48:27):
detectives in the state, towork on the nuts and bolts of
putting a task force together.
He told him there was no lineitem amount in the budget for a
task force and he said just doit and do it right and I'll get
you the funding.
And so, with the full supportof his boss, colonel Mike
(48:50):
Robinson, on May 3, 2001,dugovito met with Dan Bonnet and
Lt Gary Hagler from the FlintPD.
Bonnet was a former hippieVietnam War protester, was a
detective lieutenant overseeingall the MSP detectives and tent
posts stretching over 13counties in central northern
(49:12):
Michigan, and the idea of a coldcase task force struck a dart
with him.
For one thing, he had worked atthe Flint Post from 1994-1999,
when it was the crime capital ofthe world, he says.
For another, an unclear majorcrime is unacceptable.
We didn't close cases, he says.
(49:33):
I didn't care if it was 20years old.
I told my people investigatecrimes like they happen to your
family.
Bonnet said Bertie had askedhim before the meeting what he
would need to go into Flint witha major crimes task force.
His answer 10 detectives and alot of funding.
(49:53):
Flint had no money so it wouldall have to come from the MSP
Michigan State Police.
Barksdale was back in Flintthinking maybe the MSP would
offer up two or three detectivesfor the squad.
Birdie offered 10.
Flint would assign two or threeofficers they would target the
(50:13):
Ebby case and one or two others.
It was decided that the squadwould be housed in the Flint PD
headquarters downtown and thatFlint would provide some basic
office necessities such as roomand mailboxes.
(50:34):
The MSP would provide most ofthe band power GPS surveillance
devices when needed, computers,high-speed data lines, 800
megahertz radios.
Bonnet was told he couldhandpick his detective.
His first two choices wereSergeants Greg Kilbourne and
(50:54):
Mike Larson.
According to Bonnet, the besttwo detectives worked in the
state at the time and to teamthem up On May 16, larson and
Officer Mark Reeves began theactual physical work of setting
up a place towork.
They rounded up all MSP filecabinets and other office
equipment.
They were not being used.
(51:14):
They hauled it in computers.
They got the phone company toinstall high-speed lines to
connect the computers and phonesdirectly to the Flint MSP Port
35, west of town.
And Birdie told him wheneveryou need to get it running, if
(51:37):
you need to use my name, goahead.
I was dropping his and Reevesaid that he was dropping his
name like apples from atree.
The Homicide Task Force wasborn and even if it did have
just one tiny room that wouldbarely fit three officers, much
less the plan 12 or 13.
Even if the room with 30 beigewalls and scruffled scratched
linoleum floors was just acrossfrom the bathroom and the sound
(52:02):
of flushing toilets and the oldplumbing came through the thin
walls so clearly you couldbarely keep a phone conversation
going.
But there were still obstaclesto overcome.
Almost as soon as Larson andReeves started trucking in staff
, the Flint PD sergeant's unionfiled a complaint with the
(52:24):
Michigan Employment RelationsCommission alleging a violation
of state labor laws that thetask force was an illegal
outsourcing of Flint police work.
They went to Genesee CountyCircuit Court Judge Richard
Yulee and asked him to grant aninjunction to stop the state
police from investigating any ofFlint's old homicides.
And the union president, policeSergeant Rick Hetherington,
(52:50):
said the city is outsourcingjobs.
That should be done by citysergeants.
Barksdale had no comment forreporters but he had plenty of
comments for the sergeants.
He was mightily mad to thepoint of apoplexy and Brad
(53:11):
Barksdale when mad, is very,very mad.
And he said quote.
I told them they wereembarrassing themselves.
Don't let people think you aremore concerned with your
paycheck than putting murderersin jail End quote.
Bunner was equally ticked off,especially that the union was
(53:31):
fighting them on the Evie case.
He said, quote my God, I wantedto get that one solved.
I mean, you're talking about acase lying down in the basement
just sitting there in a file andall the detectives who work it
are retired and gone Endquote.
Barksdale knew some of it wasjust a road response from a
(53:52):
union sick of seeing officerslaid off.
Part of it was fear that thiswas the first step in the door
of a state takeover of Flint.
They were getting paranoid andit was, you know.
For some, according to Barster,it was even ridiculous.
(54:13):
He said I thought it wasludicrous but I understood what
the paranoia was.
Endquote.
There was also a fiascoinvolving the FBI that was still
fresh in a lot of people'sminds In the mid-1990s.
The FBI had offered the FlynnPD help in setting up a crime
task force.
Flynn provided office space inthe police headquarters, but it
(54:37):
was a scam.
All they wanted to do was comein riot the police building and
city hall with bugs and look forcorruption.
The feds got a quick boot whenit was discovered what they were
up to.
The Feds got a quick boot whenit was discovered what they were
upto.
Barksdale was worried that thebrouhaha would cause Birdie to
rethink his offer.
(54:58):
He was afraid he would pull out.
But Birdie says we'll work itout, we'll get it done.
And the union came to itssenses.
The issue was settled duringnegotiations.
The union was promised that thetask force would only work cold
(55:18):
cases, that those at least ayear old that had gone cold and
were no longer being activelyworked.
The task force would be giventhe green light for a year and
then its existence would be opento further negotiation.
And as a face-saving gesturewithout much other significance,
(55:39):
the union made and was grantedanother demand the name of the
task force would be changed fromthe Homicide Task Force to the
Violent Crimes Task Force.
The union thought the firstname might imply the Flint cops
didn't know how to solvehomicides, though why the second
name is any better is a matterof conjecture.
(56:01):
Pettiness prevailed though.
For example, the Flint copswouldn't let the state cops use
their LAIN machine downstairs,the computerized system for
seeing who got warrants out onthem anywhere in the
state.
The Abbey case was at the topof the task force list.
(56:26):
It fit all the criteria.
Plus, if it could be solved,the PR impact would be enormous,
both for showing the value ofjoint task forces and in getting
more money from statelegislators to fund DNA testing,
the task force would work.
(56:46):
Two other cases, one involvinga suspected serial murderer,
work.
Two other cases one involving asuspected serial murderer and
according to Bonnet they had alot of dead prostitutes.
They would have them fallingover like flies.
The other case was the killingof a GM worker, a guy who got
(57:08):
his vacation check and startedhitting the local bars trying to
find some cocaine.
Police thought that someonewent out with him to his van,
supposedly to make a sale, andinstead the killer shot him in
(57:36):
the back of his head and tookhis money.
Detective Sergeant Kilhorn wasput in charge of the Ebi case
and Sergeant Larson got theprostitutes.
Larson got the prostitutes.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part 7 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Detective Snyder passed anotherearly tip on to Malianak to
chase down and this one was froma Mark Ebby about some similar
(00:24):
murder of his mother in Flint.
Neither Snyder nor Malianak hadheard of the Ebby killing but
it was worth looking into bytheir standards.
All the tips were.
Malianak called the Flint PD andwas referred to King.
He left a message for King,left another, left several more
(00:46):
and he kept leaving messages andleaving messages but he never
called him back.
And finally, after a while hewas finally getting a hold of
him and he told him about theLudwig killing and the tip and
asked if there were anysimilarities enough to be of
interest.
And King agreed that therecertainly were similarities and
(01:12):
he told Malianak that they got agrouping, that they were
looking for a guy who's type A.
So he asked do you have anyserological evidence on your
case?
So he asked do you have anyserological evidence on your
case?
And King told them no, thateverything they had was degraded
(01:35):
and because it's 1987, thesemen was too degraded for the
technology that was availablefor that time.
But it held secrets.
It's stored in ice at the statepolice crime, like in
Bridgeport.
That might one day be unlocked.
Now.
King told Malinak that theyknew who had killed Ebi.
(01:57):
They just couldn't prove it butthey would get him eventually.
Their guy in the Flint case wastype O.
They were not looking for thesame killer.
Had he been the Pooning type,king might have told him that it
(02:19):
was a stone cold certainty.
And so Malianak said well,thanks anyway.
He hung up, followed his reporton the result of the tip and
that was for him another deadend.
Eventually, some 2,300 tipswere be phoned in.
Months later, after the flowhad dried up, they were
(02:43):
reorganized and renumbered Forno particular reason, just
happenstance.
The co-found, mark Eby, wasdesignated as tip number one.
The people who run and walkdowntown was a creation of
Detroit's Central BusinessDistrict Association in 1983.
The pro-business group thoughtit might be able to use the
(03:06):
running room boom to create cashflow and profits for downtown
restaurants and bars.
What was traditionally one ofthe slowest nights in town.
The CBDA ran a small ad in aweekly shopper asking if there
were runners out thereinterested in getting together
(03:27):
after work.
On Tuesdays, about 30 show upfor the first organizational
meeting and the group had beenmeeting at a different downtown
bar or restaurant after workevery Tuesday since On summer
Tuesdays as many as 200 wouldshow up, on cold winter nights
(03:48):
as few as 30.
It was an eclectic mix of oldand young, black and white, blue
collar, white collar,suburbanite Detroiter.
Though many of the group weresingle, it wasn't a typical
singles bar scene with peoplehitting on each other
frenetically.
People were more likely to talkabout track workouts or recent
10K times than their signs ofthe Zodiac.
(04:11):
In 1989, michael Flynn startedshowing up on Tuesdays and made
a big first impression.
He was charming and gregarious,the kind of guy to walk up to
strangers, thrust out a hand andoffer a big smile.
He was a pilot for NorthworthAirlines.
(04:31):
He often arrived in his pilot'suniform, either just getting in
from a flight or on his way outof town.
He would change in the barrestaurant into his running
clothes, go out for a six-milerun, then return.
If he had to catch a flight, hewould change back into his
(04:53):
uniform and leave.
If he was just in from a flight, then he would have a few beers
and chat up the women.
He was one of the group's niceguys.
So much so, in fact, that atthe club's annual Super Bowl
party in 1990, when he wasscheduled to make an afternoon
flight to the West Coast, hemade up a huge batch of chili
(05:15):
and dropped it off the party forothers to enjoy during the game
while he was heading West.
One of the women he chatted upwas a pretty young engineer
named Patricia Bosch.
She was a triathlete, veryattractive, and she was single
(05:38):
and was an obvious object ofattention of many of the single
men in the group.
It wasn't long before Michaeland Patricia were dating.
The Gilgravius pilot and thecurvaceous engineer made quite a
match.
There was one odd thing thebetter runners in the club
noticed, though.
On Tuesdays Michael would tellabout his latest PR over the
(06:03):
weekend, pr being running lingofor a personal record at one
distance or another.
Each Tuesday, michael wouldtell of having run yet another
10k 6.2 miles at yet anotherrecord pace.
He soon was breaking the40-minute mark in the 10k that
many runners consider thebenchmark for qualifying as a
(06:26):
very good recreational runner.
Except that when Michael wentout to run each Tuesday night
with the other runners in theclub who could also break 40
minutes, he could never comeclose to keeping up.
He would be with them for amile or two, gasping furiously,
then fall quickly off the pace,ending up running the last few
(06:49):
miles by himself.
And this all happened at a paceof maybe 7 minutes and 30
seconds a mile, versus the 6.15that he claimed he could do at
races.
So it was a BS artist.
The other good runners quicklydecided about him.
(07:10):
No way could he break 40minutes on Saturday and die like
a dog on Tuesday.
Another of his claims he wasdivorced and carried around a
picture of his young boy dressedin his hockey uniform.
Flynn said he got to be bestfriends with Bill Ford Jr of the
famous Fords who dominateDetroit business and cultural
(07:33):
circles.
Seems Flynn was at a localhockey rink to watch his son
play and had gone to theconcession stand.
On his way back he saw a totfalling off the back of the
bleachers lining the rink andhad made a miraculous catch just
before the child slammed intothe concrete.
It was Bill Ford's child and heand Flynn had since grown close
(07:58):
.
A third claim that hisbackground was diverse.
He introduced himself toanother single young woman in
the group one night, julieHamilton, a psychotherapist at
Eastwood Clinic, and Flynn saidthat it was a small world
because he had worked there foryears as a therapist too.
(08:20):
After a month or so of dating,patricia found that Michael's
running wasn't the only thing heinflated.
Somehow word got to her that hewasn't a pilot with Northwest
and that he was a fireman in hisdistrict or East Detroit, I
should say and apparently not avery good one either.
(08:41):
Word was that he was afraid ofheights not recommended in that
line of latter-aided work and ondisability.
She confronted him with it andat first he denied it.
He was angry, demanded thatthey not break up.
He called insensibly, came over, pleaded his case, didn't want
(09:02):
to give up on the relationship.
Later Patricia noticed clothingdisappearing from her house and
suspected Michael was sneakingin and taking things.
Word about all of that wentthrough the club like wildfire.
Interestingly enough, though,the club members tolerated his
(09:22):
deceptions about running andflying.
No one ever called him on themto his face.
He kept coming out on Tuesdaysin his pilot's uniform and he
kept telling about improbabletimes at weekend races.
And people kept telling storiesabout him behind his back.
(09:43):
In October of 1990, fellow clubmembers turned him in for
cheating at the Detroit FreePress International Marathon.
He finished in 3 hours and 15minutes and qualified for the
Boston Marathon.
In the process he had beatenout several of the runners he
couldn't keep up with onTuesdays and in the process had
(10:06):
beaten out several of therunners he couldn't keep up with
on Tuesdays, and a review offilm from various cameras set up
along the way to catch cheaters.
He was nowhere to be seen untilafter the midpoint in the race
when suddenly he appeared,ridiculously enough, in his
(10:26):
first appearance on film.
He was wearing a nylon jacketon a hot day and had not started
sweating yet, though he wassupposed to be more than 13
miles into his run.
Later shots of him showed thenylon jacket tied around his
waist and sweat pouring down.
Late in the race he was walking.
(10:47):
He requested a hearing withrace officials to dispute the
charges but didn't show and wasdisqualified.
Late February or early March of1991, michael Hara, a sports
reporter who covered the DetroitLions for the Detroit News,
wally Pupor, a computerspecialist at Ford, and two
(11:11):
other members of the DowntownRunners had separated themselves
from their fellow club membersfor a conversation Tonight.
The talk wasn't of training,pace or race times.
It was of murder and of thesuspect in their midst, someone
wanted to throw out somethingfor comment, but only to a small
circle of trusted friends.
(11:32):
And one of them said you guyshave been following the murder
of that Northwest stewardess.
And they nodded and said yeah,sure, who has not, who hadn't?
And they, they said anythingjump out of you.
And O'Hara said Michael Flynn.
(11:53):
And the first speaker said yeah, you got it.
And one asked Flynn, why Flynn?
And speculation was rife in themedia that since there were no
signs of violence outsideludwig's hotel room, no signs of
forced entry, perhaps thekiller was someone who had
gained her trust.
Between the lines there seemedto be a bit of blaming the
(12:16):
victim, that she had maybe beenpicked up in the hotel bar and
you know the comment was well,you know, she's a flight
attendant, right.
And then they you know they'resaying it might have been
someone she knew or someone shemight have met, that she had
reason to trust.
And this is the first speakersaying that said it must be a
(12:38):
fellow employee, maybe a pilot,know anyone who hangs around
bars in a pilot's uniform.
And again someone said MichaelFlynn.
So what should we do?
He said well, there's an 800number to call it's a tip line,
should we call it?
And they decided that they gotto.
(12:58):
And then they also asked whatif he didn't do it?
And then somebody would say,well, but what if he did?
So Flynn's deceptions no longerseem humorous and, what's more,
(13:19):
it was widely reported thatLudwig's clothes were missing
and Patricia suspected thatFlynn was taking her things too.
After this conversation,someone volunteered to call the
tip line.
On succeeding Tuesdays, thesmall group of people who ran
downtown would continue tospeculate about Flynn and the
(13:39):
love with murder.
No one from the Romulus PD everacknowledged getting the tip or
mentioned whether or not theyfollow up on it.
The group of runners never knewif Flynn was investigated and,
if so, if he had been cleared.
Whenever Flynn came up to themover the following years,
(13:59):
grinning his big grin, glad,handing them, they pictured a
raped and mutilated flightattendant in a hotel room at the
airport.
So they avoided him and theimage whenever they could.
What O'Hara and the otherswouldn't find out for 11 years
was that the cops had indeedacted on the tip, that it had
(14:21):
been the second best one theywould have get out of the 2,300.
Concurrently, flame's name hadcome up by way of the Macomb
County Sheriff's Department,which called Snyder on March 8.
They were holding Flynn at thecounty jail and thought that
Romulus PD ought to hustle theirway up there.
(14:44):
Flynn had shown up in a Navyuniform at an elementary school
claiming to be a pilot just backfrom Desert Storm.
He wanted to arrange a speechbefore an assembly.
Suspicious school officialscalled the sheriff's department.
He agreed voluntarily to asearch of his car and the
sheriff's deputy found ID forNorthwest Airlines and a
(15:08):
Northwest captain's uniform inhis trunk.
Snyder raised up I-94 to MrClemens, or to Mount Clemens,
and interviewed Flynn in thecounty jail.
He told them he was in fact alieutenant with the East Detroit
Fire Department and had been acop in East Detroit too.
Flynn told them that the lasttime he had been to the airport
(15:30):
was in October to fly to amarathon in Minneapolis and that
he had never been to the Hilton.
His former girlfriend, patriciaBosch, was cooperative and she
still had one of Flynn's coatswhich she turned over to Snyder
and Melinek, and it was a Navypea coat bearing the tag
(15:52):
Lieutenant Flynn, uss, midway Inthe pocket of the coat.
This got their hearts going.
It was a letter Flynn hadwritten to Bosch just days after
Ludwig's murder and in theletter Flynn said he knew Ludwig
, that she was a fine person andthat it make him sick to think
about what had been done to her.
(16:13):
And Snyder said Bingo, this isour guy.
Flynn readily agreed to giveMalinak and Gordon or Malinak, I
should say a saliva sample fora DNA test.
(16:36):
And when it came back weekslater, the bingo turned into
bust because his DNA didn'tmatch the seaming at the scene.
He wasn't the killer, he wasjust a duck with a good line and
nice uniforms.
He was just plain imposter.
(16:57):
Snyder found out that profilersfrom the FBI and various police
agencies around the country werehaving a convention in Iowa in
March.
Iowa in March.
Northwest offered free flightsand crowds, sprung money from
the budget for a hotel and foodand sent Malianak and Snyder to
see what they could come up with.
(17:18):
Malianak thought it was a bunchof hooey.
Snyder thought it would be likechicken soup couldn't hurt.
Besides, who wants to pass up atrip to Iowa in March?
According to, according toMalinak, the profilers told them
that the killer was a whitemale.
Big deal, haven't they allthat's useless.
(17:39):
One profiler told them thekiller may have been mentally
disturbed which, given what hehad done to the body before and
after death, including justafter sawing off her head with a
serrated knife, struck Malinakas no shit, sherlock.
The profilers also told themthe killer surely lived within
(18:00):
five miles of the airport andhad likely taken Ludwig's
belongings to build a shrine toher and her murder in the
basement of his house.
If it was typical of a Romulushouse, the horror of the shrine
would be hidden behind thenormal exterior of a small
aluminum-sided bungalow.
(18:20):
The shrine would include herunderwear, pantyhose, wallet,
purse, diamond earrings, threepieces of burgundy, northwest
flight attendant luggage, creditcards, uniform and an ID tag.
The killer was certainly single, probably did not have a
girlfriend, likely had beendominated by his mother and may
(18:42):
still live with her.
He was probably no taller than5'10", probably changed his jobs
frequently, probably neverserved in the military.
His car was likely an oldjunker filled with just about
everything he owns.
In another conclusion, thekiller was an organized rapist
(19:03):
and a disorganized murderer.
He had planned the rape but hadnot planned the murder.
It was something that just gotout of hand.
Snyder was skeptical.
This was no accidental murder,no disorganized killer.
He had gone to the Hilton torape and kill.
He had raped and killed and sofar he had gotten away with it.
(19:29):
And Snyder asked hey, you haveseen those films from gas
station cameras where a guy goesto interrupt the place.
The robbery goes bad.
He ends up shooting the clerk.
What does he do?
He freaks out.
He runs out of there as fast ashe can.
There's an accidental killer.
If Nancy's killer didn't intendto kill her, he wouldn't have
(19:50):
stuck around and clean up,unlike the Flint PD.
Snyder and Malianak took whatthe profilers had to say with a
grain of salt.
A good thing too, since most ofit would many years later prove
to be dead wrong About.
The only thing they believedwas that the killer might very
well be in the mist, living inone of those rummeless bungalows
(20:15):
they drove by every day.
It wasn't much of a return onthe investment of plane tickets
to Iowa, because the profilershad not helped.
They were no closer to solvethe case, as had the Ebi murder.
The Lowood murder faded into oneof those filler stories editors
(20:35):
assign on slow news days or onanniversaries or year-end
roundups.
There was so much interest inthe case.
There wasn't a year that wentby when, on the anniversary,
someone in the media didn't callto ask about it.
Someone in the media didn'tcall to ask about it.
Clues, scares and death offlight attendant that was a
(20:57):
headline for the free press sixmonths after the murder.
Flight attendant's slayingstill unsolved that was the
headline in their December 28,1991 edition.
Under December 28, 1991 editionby then all the leads had been
(21:19):
dead ends and the case had longgone.
Now Michael Flynn wasn't theonly good suspect, not the first
bingo and not the first bust.
The first had been the shuttlebus driver fired for screaming
at the Northwest flightattendant.
Another early suspect was aviolent crack cocaine addict who
(21:40):
was picked up on drug chargesand during routine questioning
said he couldn't remember whathe had been doing Sunday night.
But he may have done it.
He was cleared too.
Not long after the murder aformer manager at the Hilton
called in a tip.
Six months earlier he had beenworking the desk when a white
(22:03):
male came up to him and said hiskey card wouldn't open his door
and he wanted a replacement.
The manager recognized it as amissing master key for another
floor.
He called police and stole theguy until they could arrive.
Stalling meant in this caselistening to the guy with the
unlikely last name of Straight,talking about his satanic cult
(22:27):
and how he was going to Atlantato chop off some arms and heads.
Extremely disoriented, he toldpolice he was the Antichrist and
wanted to find someone in thehotel to have sex with so he
could get rid of himself of hisevil spirit.
His mother was calling, he wasin charge.
Pretty hot tip.
(22:48):
A guy known for possession ofstolen key cards wanted to have
sex to purchase demons andhoping to cut off heads.
Melanie Akensteiner paid him avisit, tracking him down at Papa
Romano's Pizza Joe nearby wherehe was a delivery man.
He said he was on medicationthese days.
(23:09):
He had been in church with hisparents.
The night of Lewitt's murder hedid give a saliva sample and was
cleared.
Waitresses at the Wheat and Ryerestaurant near the airport
flagged a waiter at the HolidayInn.
His girlfriend was a Northwestflight attendant and he liked to
(23:31):
beat her up, but he was alsocleared.
Blood and saliva tests clearedsome 60 suspects in the first
few months.
Eventually, saliva, blood orDNA tests would clear 200
persons, including Art Ludwig,who's neither reluctantly asked
to take a test about six monthsafter the murder as a formality
(23:54):
asked to take a test about sixmonths after the murder as a
formality.
Periodically some sickle,having read about room 354,
would show up at the front deskand specifically ask for that
room.
Look for some thrill inspending a night where Ludwig
had died.
Police were called each time.
Each time the suspect wascleared.
For years room 354 was takenout of circulation, stripped of
(24:15):
furniture, carpeting, used asstorage area, even after the
hotel was sold and became theRoyce Hotel.
Today the hotel is a DoubleTreeHotel and the room is back in
service with the same number.
The same number.
In May 1992, it looked again asif police by half their man,
(24:36):
leslie Allen Williams, age 38,had been arrested for four rape,
murders and other assaults inOakland County.
Ludwig had been killed on aSunday and Williams' last six
known assaults had come onweekends.
(24:57):
His blood type was A positive.
He had bound his victims' hands.
All of his assaults werespontaneous and premeditated
crimes of opportunity.
In June, though, policeannounced he was not the killer.
Further lab tests show he hadthe wrong enzymes in his blood.
The year 1995 was a busy yearfor hot leads.
(25:19):
Ann Arbor police called Snyderto tell them they had arrested
James Kleppinger for raping andmurdering his girlfriend Of
interest was his MO.
He had used ligatures to bindher hands and he lived just down
Merriman Road from the airport,but Steider determined he had
been in Ohio when Ludwig died.
(25:40):
Glenn Rogers was arrested inKentucky in connection with a
cross-country killing spree thatclaimed the lives of women in
Mississippi, florida, california, louisiana.
That claimed the lives of womenin Mississippi, florida,
california, louisiana.
Breyer's sister told police herbrother might have killed more
than 50 women nationwide.
(26:01):
Charles Rathbun, a freelancephotographer who had once worked
in Michigan, admitted that hehad killed Linda Sobeck, a
cheerleader for the Los AngelesRaiders, but he said it was
accidental.
He was suspected of killing asecond woman and had been
charged with rape in 1979.
Romulus police investigatedboth men.
(26:22):
Blood samples cleared them ofLudwig's murder.
Then they got word of a mirrorimage killing in Minneapolis of
places with center hearts racing.
James Luther Carton, a 40 yearold man, uh who was a
construction laborer andcrackhead, had been arrested for
(26:44):
the torture, rape and murder ofa 26 year old office worker
named Judy Lee Dover.
Her hands had been bound andshe had been gagged.
There were seven puncturewounds on her right shoulder and
three were above her rightbreast.
A slashing wound to her neckhad severed all major arteries
(27:09):
and vessels and she had beenraped.
Blood tests cleared him and theLudwig case.
Three years later, anotherheart-thumping bingo started
with a teletype out of a smallpolice department in Minnesota
telling the Romulus PD that theyhave arrested a former Michigan
(27:30):
resident from the affluentDetroit suburb of Grosse Pointe.
Two women get in their van at aWalmart.
The driver hears something,turns, sees this guy in the back
holding a hunting knife.
She jumps out screaming.
He panics, jumps out, wants topick up, squeals out of there.
(27:52):
She gets the license plate andcalls the cops.
The cops find him in a motel,the knife is wrapped in a towel,
in the truck next to a largebottle of bleach, like he was
planning to clean up a mess.
They ran his name found he hadbeen arrested in Michigan in
1986, his name found he had beenarrested in Michigan in 1986,
(28:20):
went to jail and got out inDecember of 1990, just in time
to murder Ludwig.
His blood work in Michiganshowed he was a positive, just
what they were looking for,though his PGM grouping was a
not.
Milindak wanted him to submitto another sample, this time to
find his PGM, but he refused.
14 months later he finallyagreed to another blood test,
(28:43):
wrong PGM grouping.
He was clear on Ludwig.
The next hot suspect would notsurface until 2002.
(29:03):
Art Ludwig wasn't a passivevictim, anything, but he decided
early on to do what he did best.
He was a media guy, he hadworked on the media so he would
keep the story alive.
He would keep the heat on.
He would do what he could coulddo to get Nancy's killer one
(29:27):
way or another sooner or later.
Early on there was a delaygetting the 800 number tip line
started, something with budgetproblems in the police
department.
Ludwig told Ken Krause that hewould pay for the tip line if he
had to, but he wanted a line upand running ASAP.
Krause called him back, hisbosses had okayed the line and
(29:50):
and Rumlis would pay for it.
Ludwig kept coming back toDetroit to do radio and TV
interviews.
He was accessible to thereporters at the Detroit News
and Detroit Free Press and theywere happy to keep the story
alive.
Everything he did he made surehe told his growing number of
media contacts.
About A month after the murderhe videotaped an appeal for
(30:13):
information and had itdisseminated to Detroit media
outlets and the headline readVictim's Husband Tapes on Appeal
.
Two months after the murder,art flew into town and met with
a psychic from Brighton and aclairvoyant from Farmington
Hills and room 354 at theairport Hilton.
(30:35):
They told him they were able topick up the same image of the
killer and that their imagedidn't match Arcee's description
of the composite in thenewspapers either.
But they couldn't actuallydescribe what they thought they
were seeing Privately.
Ludwig thought they wereuseless but nonetheless it was a
(30:58):
father for headlines, a way tokeep the story alive.
Grieving husband calls onpsychics to find wife's killer.
At first neither, and I feltthat they have solved this
fairly fast, says Ludwig, quote.
And then he says also quote.
But then I felt the more wekept it on the front burner, the
(31:21):
better off you would be One.
There was less chance theRomulus police would go on to
something else if there was alot of hue and cry and second,
it would generate leads.
End quote Love.
We got the Teamsters Nancy wasa member of Local 2747 to kick
(31:41):
in $30,000 to the reward fund.
Headlines was Teamsters JoinHunt for Killer Truckers to
Circulate Flyers About SlainFlight Attendant.
That was the headline in theDetroit News on August 21, 1991.
Art's picture accompanied thestory with a cut line Art Ludwig
(32:04):
.
He wants answers.
The award announcement coincidedwith a big campaign to splash
wanted posters all over townwith details of Nancy's slaying
and photos of the compositedrawings of the killer.
Art held a press conference atthe Marriott Hotel on August 26
(32:27):
to announce that there would bea barrage of posters the next
day.
Papers prominently carried thestory.
Unfrustrated Lowell was quotedas saying in the news quote my
mission is to raise publicawareness.
End quote.
He also took out big displayads featuring the poster in all
the dailies and suburbanweeklies in the Detroit area.
(32:49):
The Teamsters said they wouldrun the reward poster in their
union magazine and their 1.6million members nationwide would
distribute the bright yellowflyers at hotels, restaurants
and airports.
Nationwide Teamsters membersand Art and his daughters taped
posters up on light poles aroundtown.
(33:11):
On September 16, advo Systems,a direct mail company in
suburban Livonia, begandistributing copies of the
poster to all households withinfive miles of the airport.
Art knew how to pull the mediastrings and he pulled them with
good timing and great effect.
He had mentored a lot ofsuccessful TV executives and
(33:35):
reporters over the years.
Now he would call in all favors, all chits, to get the airtime
he could.
He got on the Mavripovich showout of New York.
He made appearances on ACurrent Affair Inside Edition.
He let cameras follow himaround to fill the B-rolls of
(33:56):
their feature stories and helater on said I prostituted
myself to the media While in NewYork taping the Povitch Show.
Lowe would make with an authorhe had heard about who was
writing a true crime book onunsolved cases.
His wife's brother ended upgarnering a chapter in the book
(34:16):
titled Rewards.
On the first anniversary of hiswife's death, ludwig took out
display ads and the Detroit areapapers and the first line read
In loving memory of my wife,northwest Flight Attendant Read.
The second and in huge, boldletters the third line read
(34:38):
Nancy Jean Ludwig, the body ofthe ad, said in part that Nancy
was raped and murdered at theairport Hilton Hotel in Romulus
on Sunday night, february 17th1991.
The person responsible for thishorrible act is still free and
probably still in the Detroitarea.
(34:59):
It is absolutely essential thatwe get this person off the
streets and into treatmentbefore he strikes again.
The next victim could besomeone you love wife, mother,
girlfriend, daughter or neighbor.
Tips poured in Snyder andMeliniak ran down.
(35:19):
All of them Nothing.
Each anniversary Art hadsomething planned that would
bring the story back to life fora day or two.
Someone knew something he wassure If he kept the story alive
they might catch a break.
If he let it die.
Well, that wasn't going tohappen.
(35:42):
Just after the fourthanniversary of Nancy's death,
ludwig's forlorn visage peeredout at readers from the cover of
the pre-pressed magazine ofMarch 12, 1995, her wrote in a
story by Ben Burns, a formereditor of the Detroit News who
was dean of journalism at WayneState University.
(36:02):
It was a story that grew out ofa 15-week project he assigned
his students in a class oninvestigative reporting.
Lubbock told Burns that he waswilling to do anything, anything
go anywhere, to catch thekiller.
He killed two people that night.
(36:23):
He killed Nancy and he killedme.
On the fifth anniversary of hermurder, the free press carried
a five-column story with theheadline Six Sisters Search for
Stepmother's Death.
The story announced that fourof Ludwig's daughters were
(36:43):
arriving at what had been theairport Hilton.
It had been sold since themurder and it was then called
the Royce Hotel for Minneapolisthat day to kick off a campaign
to find their stepmother'skiller.
They would be in for severaldays doing interviews, passing
out new flyers and beating thedrums.
(37:04):
The story said that the hotelhad agreed to let them place
flowers and light candles inroom 354, which had not been
used since the murder Snyder wasquoted.
I have never had a case for thislength of time that has kept
the attention of so many people.
I don't know why.
(37:25):
That is A two-word explanation.
Art Ludwig, what tips poured in?
Nothing.
Despite everything he did overthe years, nothing stopped some
people from thinking he hadeither killed his wife or, more
likely, hired someone to do it.
There were rumors that he hadlost money in an investment in a
(37:47):
failed bread bakery, which wastrue, and needed insurance money
, which is false.
He felt the cold shoulder fromsome, the glances from others
faces quickly averted when heturned to them.
Always he felt as though hewere under a cloud of suspicion.
Seven or eight years afterNancy's death, art got a call
(38:10):
from a close friend who wantedto alert him that a mutual
acquaintance was spreading dirtabout Art.
The mutual acquaintance was oneof Art's closest childhood
friends, one of his fellowbusboys during summers at Lennon
Lakes Bar and Cafe in Brainerd.
On weekends, when they got outof work too late to avoid
breaking curfew they would sleepin the employee bunk room on
(38:36):
the second floor of therestaurant.
The friend was much bigger thanArt but they have wrestled and
engaged in typical horseplay.
They were inseparable in highschool and kept in touch.
Over the years the friend hadbecome a cop.
He was telling people quote I'ma cop and I know Art did it.
It's just matter of time tillthey prove it.
(38:58):
End quote.
Art said that he was absolutelystunned.
He said quote we have livedtogether.
We went to high school together.
I have been in his home.
When he got sick I visited himin the hospital.
End quote.
Art hasn't spoken with himsince the friendship, another
(39:24):
victim.
But for all of Art's workingfor media, for all of Snyder's
and Malianak's bulldogrelentless deaths, eventually
they had to admit it was nothingmore to be done.
It was a cold case.
They were at a dead end.
(39:51):
Bradford Barksdale has anunusual academic background for
chief of police, with anaffinity and talent for biology,
chemistry, calculus and physics.
He went to Cass Technical HighSchool in Detroit and Margaret
Evey's alma mater In 1970, whenBarksdale graduated.
(40:18):
It was, and today still is, anoasis of learning in a largely
dysfunctional school systemriddled with incompetence and
indifference, where high schoolseniors routinely cannot read or
calculate above second or thirdgrade levels.
Cass Tech is where the smartestand most motivated of the
city's kids go, often arrivingby city bus from many miles and
several transfers away.
(40:38):
Barksdale went to theUniversity of Michigan-Flint and
spent his first three years asa math major, switching to
African-American studies.
As a senior he switched overafter an incident that proved
for him that math was tootheoretical to pursue as a
life's occupation.
A professor one day wentthrough a counterintuitive proof
(41:01):
that if you take .9999 andextend the nines to infinity,
the number became equivalent toone For Barksdale it was hogwash
to one.
For Barksdale it was hogwash.
He didn't care how many ninesthere were If you kept having
one nine after another.
To him you were approaching asclose as you could get to one,
(41:22):
but still were not there Of sucha tiny thing the difference, or
lack thereof, between one and adecimal point followed by an
infinity ofnines.
Would Flint's police chiefultimately be made?
Like many big cities in themid-1970s, flint was recruiting
blacks to diversify its policeforce and Barksdale thought he
(41:47):
would give it a shot.
He started out workingundercover narcotics because he
was a fresh face no one wouldrecognize.
He made sergeant in 1984,lieutenant in 1987, about the
same time he was assigned to theFlint Area Narcotics Group, or
FANG, a multi-jurisdictionaltask force that included members
(42:08):
of the state police police.
In 1995, Barksdale was promotedto captain and on October 3,
2000, 23 years to the day afterhe started training at the
police academy, he was namedchief of police.
Coincidentally, in 1981, duringa 15-month layoff from the PD
(42:33):
during one of Flint's recurringeconomic slums, barksdale got to
know Ebi.
He took a temporary job asdirector of safety and security
at UM-Flint and was in severalmeetings with her.
He was working vice andnarcotics when Ebi was murdered
and had no involvement with thecase, though like everyone in
(42:53):
Flint he was well-versed in hisparticulars.
While working with Fang,barksdale had become friends
with his supervisor on the taskforce, captain Robert Bertie.
They were both no-nonsense,straight-shooting cops with
reputations for knowing how toget things done and done right.
Bertie had been a small-townkid growing up in Michigan's
(43:16):
thumb.
He graduated from high schoolin 1970, went to college for a
year, didn't like it and droppedout.
In 1973 he took a part-time jobas cop in his hometown of North
Branch, a job that came withnot a minute of training.
(43:37):
He just raised his right arm,took an oath, got his uniform.
He fell in love with being acop, joined the state police
academy the next year and, upongraduation, became a road
trooper for $4.82 an hour inPontiac, a city very much like
Flint in that its auto factoryeconomy was suffering through
(44:00):
hard times as imports caughtinto the Big Three's market
share.
Birdie worked undercover inDetroit three years, then worked
on several motor jurisdictionalteams in an affluent Oakland
County north of Detroit, inwestern Michigan and in Flint.
In 1996, he was promoted tocaptain and placed in charge of
(44:22):
the state police's criminalinvestigations division, where
he oversaw covert operationssuch as the installation of
hidden cameras and microphonesduring investigations and
reporting to the state'sattorney general, investigating
all allegations of corruption,of malfeasance by the state's
(44:45):
elected politicians.
By the time Barksdale wasappointed, chief Birdie had
become a lieutenant colonel withthe state police and was its
highest-ranking career officer,reporting only to a political
appointee who held the rank ofcolonel.
In 2000, flint was in anotherdownturn, this one severe enough
(45:11):
that Michigan's Governor, johnEngler, had repeatedly
threatened to have the statetake over the running of the
city, and in fact, a trustee waseventually appointed to oversee
Flint's day-to-day operationsand tried to rein in its huge
budget deficits, reducing themayor to a figurehead.
(45:32):
Reducing the mayor to afigurehead.
The police department was goingthrough layoffs and in even
more of a budget crunch thannormal.
Eventually, the departmentwould lose 100 positions, going
from about 350 officers in thelate 1990s to about 250 in
2002.
When he heard his old friendhad made chief Bertie, gave
(45:57):
Barksdale a call and suggestedthey get together.
He thought they might besomething the MSP could do to
help his old friend battle thebad guys in Flint.
And he said quote I wanted usto be more fluid and flexible in
our approach to crime solving.
If you see something, offeryour assistance.
(46:20):
Some police departments wantyour help, others don't.
End quote.
So he figured that Barksdalewould, that Barksdale would.
And he said that he had neverfound a chief of police that
(46:41):
cared for his community morethan Brad Barksdale cares for
his.
He was willing to be creativeand, more important, willing to
allocate resources to come toFlint's aid.
So Bertie even was willing togo so far as to pull in
detectives or troopers fromother
districts.
Before the end of the year 2000, bertie and Barksdale met for
(47:02):
lunch, having worked together inFAN.
Both were supporters ofmulti-jurisdictional task forces
.
Both were also big proponentsof DNA technology and
well-versed and recenttechnological advances that
might make it possible to solveall crimes.
They decided to form a coldcase task force that, so as not
(47:25):
to step on any toes, would onlytarget very old cases no longer
being worked.
That would also reduce thepossibility of opposition,
either from within the ranks ofthe PD or from local politicians
, democrats, all who were veryleery of perceived meddling by
(47:45):
the state or its Republicangovernor.
They also decided to targetcases where crime scene evidence
could lend itself to updatedDNA analysis.
There was one case that jumpedout to Barksdale as fitting
every criteria.
The Ebi case was at the top ofthe list, he says he asked
(48:07):
Bertie if he was familiar withthe case.
He wasn't.
Barksdale, filled him in, saidnothing would impact our
community more than solvingthis.
Brady went back to his Lansingoffice at the MSP's headquarters
and told his assistant, markDugovito, who supervised all the
(48:27):
detectives in the state, towork on the nuts and bolts of
putting a task force together.
He told him there was no lineitem amount in the budget for a
task force and he said just doit and do it right and I'll get
you the funding.
And so, with the full supportof his boss, colonel Mike
(48:50):
Robinson, on May 3, 2001,dugovito met with Dan Bonnet and
Lt Gary Hagler from the FlintPD.
Bonnet was a former hippieVietnam War protester, was a
detective lieutenant overseeingall the MSP detectives and tent
posts stretching over 13counties in central northern
(49:12):
Michigan, and the idea of a coldcase task force struck a dart
with him.
For one thing, he had worked atthe Flint Post from 1994-1999,
when it was the crime capital ofthe world, he says.
For another, an unclear majorcrime is unacceptable.
We didn't close cases, he says.
(49:33):
I didn't care if it was 20years old.
I told my people investigatecrimes like they happen to your
family.
Bonnet said Bertie had askedhim before the meeting what he
would need to go into Flint witha major crimes task force.
His answer 10 detectives and alot of funding.
(49:53):
Flint had no money so it wouldall have to come from the MSP
Michigan State Police.
Barksdale was back in Flintthinking maybe the MSP would
offer up two or three detectivesfor the squad.
Birdie offered 10.
Flint would assign two or threeofficers they would target the
(50:13):
Ebby case and one or two others.
It was decided that the squadwould be housed in the Flint PD
headquarters downtown and thatFlint would provide some basic
office necessities such as roomand mailboxes.
(50:34):
The MSP would provide most ofthe band power GPS surveillance
devices when needed, computers,high-speed data lines, 800
megahertz radios.
Bonnet was told he couldhandpick his detective.
His first two choices wereSergeants Greg Kilbourne and
(50:54):
Mike Larson.
According to Bonnet, the besttwo detectives worked in the
state at the time and to teamthem up On May 16, larson and
Officer Mark Reeves began theactual physical work of setting
up a place towork.
They rounded up all MSP filecabinets and other office
equipment.
They were not being used.
(51:14):
They hauled it in computers.
They got the phone company toinstall high-speed lines to
connect the computers and phonesdirectly to the Flint MSP Port
35, west of town.
And Birdie told him wheneveryou need to get it running, if
(51:37):
you need to use my name, goahead.
I was dropping his and Reevesaid that he was dropping his
name like apples from atree.
The Homicide Task Force wasborn and even if it did have
just one tiny room that wouldbarely fit three officers, much
less the plan 12 or 13.
Even if the room with 30 beigewalls and scruffled scratched
linoleum floors was just acrossfrom the bathroom and the sound
(52:02):
of flushing toilets and the oldplumbing came through the thin
walls so clearly you couldbarely keep a phone conversation
going.
But there were still obstaclesto overcome.
Almost as soon as Larson andReeves started trucking in staff
, the Flint PD sergeant's unionfiled a complaint with the
(52:24):
Michigan Employment RelationsCommission alleging a violation
of state labor laws that thetask force was an illegal
outsourcing of Flint police work.
They went to Genesee CountyCircuit Court Judge Richard
Yulee and asked him to grant aninjunction to stop the state
police from investigating any ofFlint's old homicides.
And the union president, policeSergeant Rick Hetherington,
(52:50):
said the city is outsourcingjobs.
That should be done by citysergeants.
Barksdale had no comment forreporters but he had plenty of
comments for the sergeants.
He was mightily mad to thepoint of apoplexy and Brad
(53:11):
Barksdale when mad, is very,very mad.
And he said quote.
I told them they wereembarrassing themselves.
Don't let people think you aremore concerned with your
paycheck than putting murderersin jail End quote.
Bunner was equally ticked off,especially that the union was
(53:31):
fighting them on the Evie case.
He said, quote my God, I wantedto get that one solved.
I mean, you're talking about acase lying down in the basement
just sitting there in a file andall the detectives who work it
are retired and gone Endquote.
Barksdale knew some of it wasjust a road response from a
(53:52):
union sick of seeing officerslaid off.
Part of it was fear that thiswas the first step in the door
of a state takeover of Flint.
They were getting paranoid andit was, you know.
For some, according to Barster,it was even ridiculous.
(54:13):
He said I thought it wasludicrous but I understood what
the paranoia was.
Endquote.
There was also a fiascoinvolving the FBI that was still
fresh in a lot of people'sminds In the mid-1990s.
The FBI had offered the FlynnPD help in setting up a crime
task force.
Flynn provided office space inthe police headquarters, but it
(54:37):
was a scam.
All they wanted to do was comein riot the police building and
city hall with bugs and look forcorruption.
The feds got a quick boot whenit was discovered what they were
up to.
The Feds got a quick boot whenit was discovered what they were
upto.
Barksdale was worried that thebrouhaha would cause Birdie to
rethink his offer.
(54:58):
He was afraid he would pull out.
But Birdie says we'll work itout, we'll get it done.
And the union came to itssenses.
The issue was settled duringnegotiations.
The union was promised that thetask force would only work cold
(55:18):
cases, that those at least ayear old that had gone cold and
were no longer being activelyworked.
The task force would be giventhe green light for a year and
then its existence would be opento further negotiation.
And as a face-saving gesturewithout much other significance,
(55:39):
the union made and was grantedanother demand the name of the
task force would be changed fromthe Homicide Task Force to the
Violent Crimes Task Force.
The union thought the firstname might imply the Flint cops
didn't know how to solvehomicides, though why the second
name is any better is a matterof conjecture.
(56:01):
Pettiness prevailed though.
For example, the Flint copswouldn't let the state cops use
their LAIN machine downstairs,the computerized system for
seeing who got warrants out onthem anywhere in the
state.
The Abbey case was at the topof the task force list.
(56:26):
It fit all the criteria.
Plus, if it could be solved,the PR impact would be enormous,
both for showing the value ofjoint task forces and in getting
more money from statelegislators to fund DNA testing,
the task force would work.
(56:46):
Two other cases, one involvinga suspected serial murderer,
work.
Two other cases one involving asuspected serial murderer and
according to Bonnet they had alot of dead prostitutes.
They would have them fallingover like flies.
The other case was the killingof a GM worker, a guy who got
(57:08):
his vacation check and startedhitting the local bars trying to
find some cocaine.
Police thought that someonewent out with him to his van,
supposedly to make a sale, andinstead the killer shot him in
(57:36):
the back of his head and tookhis money.
Detective Sergeant Kilhorn wasput in charge of the Ebi case
and Sergeant Larson got theprostitutes.
Larson got the prostitutes.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a great week.
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